Web Standards

Image matters

Perception is everything. Many of the people we interact with on our website have never been here, haven't met our faculty, staff, or students. They may be prospective students, prospective employees, community members, legislators, media, or any number of others. Our website may be the only contact they have with us – perception is everything. What does our website say to them?

Is it easy for them to find what they are looking for?

Do we look like a respectable university? If there are typos, grammar errors, formatting issues, blurry photos, etc. – the answer is probably "NO"

Does our website reflect who we are as an institution and the students we serve?

Writing for the Web

Web writing is totally different to writing for printed matter. We tend to scan content on the web hunting for the information we're after, as opposed to reading word-for-word. As a result of this, there are certain guidelines you should be sure to follow when writing copy for your website (source: webcredible.com):

Use clear and simple language

Limit each paragraph to one idea

Front-load content

Use descriptive subheadings -- good rule of thumb is to use a subheading for every two paragraphs in text heavy content.

Bolden important words -- but not more than a few

Use descriptive link text

Use lists

Left-align text

Pasting Text into CommonSpot

When pasting copied text into CommonSpot, all filters must be applied. It is not acceptable to import styles that are not available on CommonSpot.